Broadcast Top of Hour News from Your Radio Station
Broadcast a hosted news feed, on the hour, to all your listeners automatically without the need for scheduling events, replacing files, or going live yourself.
Keep your listeners informed about what's going on in the world with top of hour news. Broadcasting on the hour, every hour, you can now automatically set your favourite news source without the need of scheduling events or replacing files.
Please note that the top of hour news feature is only available on the Plus & Premium plans.. Upgrade anytime in your Radio.co Account > Settings > Billing, then choose your ideal plan.
Top of Hour News Setup
Access top of hour news in your Radio.co Account > Media > News where you will be able to build your personalised bulletin. There are two main sections to creating the bulletin: the Bulletin Builder and the Bulletin Settings.
Creating a News Bulletin
In the Bulletin Builder section, choose your introduction, news source, backing audio, and outro from your media library.
1. Intro & Outro
Select your intro and outro tracks from your media library by selecting either boxes to the sides, then choose the tracks to book-end your news bulletin. The maximum file length is 60 seconds. We recommend a short jingle which announces your station name and the fact the news is starting.
2. News Source
Enter the URL of the news source in the field displayed. Use places like Feature Story News (subscription service). Once the URL has been entered, test the feed so confirm it works as expected.
Ensure you have permission from the news provider before saving the source. Please note, the new source URL must to be in MP3 format.
3. Background Audio
Select the track you'd like to choose as background audio by searching tracks in your media library. Once happy, save all your changes.
Bulletin Settings
In the Bulletin Settings, choose the frequency and metadata for your top of hour news.
Change your top of hour news frequency next to Deliver News. Choose whether you want news to be delivered every hour or daily. If you choose every hour, two more drop down menu's will appear. Here, you can select what hours the news bulletin is broadcast.
1. When to Broadcast Top of Hour News
2. What Days to Broadcast
Then choose which days you want the top of hour news to broadcast.
3. Title & Artist Displayed on Your Station
Finally, add the title and artist for the bulletin. For example, if using a Sky News bulletin you might use:
- Title: News Update
- Artist: Sky News
Once you're happy with everything, click 'Save and Enable' in the bottom right corner to save all your changes.
If you're not with Radio.co and you would like to test out the top of hour news bulletin tool, then signup today with a 7-day free trial. Access incredibly useful features like custom track editor, voice tracking, record talk shows from different locations, dedicated mobile apps, and loads more!
